Lucien Bouchard

With one week remaining before voters in the French-speaking province of Quebec vote on whether to set themselves on the path to independence, Canadians are awakening to the possibility that their country is on the brink of fracture. The separatist campaign has closed a 10-point deficit in the polls, pulling into a virtual tie in surveys released over the weekend.

In the first legal ruling on Canada's most divisive issue, the Supreme Court said Thursday that Quebec--home to a powerful separatist movement--cannot secede without seeking the federal government's consent. But the high court left open the possibility of a breakaway arranged at the bargaining table. It said federal officials would be obligated to negotiate if, as separatist leaders hope, a clear majority of voters in the mostly French-speaking province approved secession in a referendum.

Setting up a new confrontation with Quebec's separatists, the Canadian government announced Friday that it will take them on in court. Justice Minister Allan Rock said the federal government will intervene in a Montreal civil lawsuit and challenge separatist doctrine that Quebec voters alone can decide on the independence of the French-speaking province--without regard to Canada's constitution and without the consent of the rest of the country.

Canada's possible dissolution may be an innocuous event to many outsiders, but an immense tragedy to others more directly concerned. If English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians can't get along, can anyone? No wonder the Bosnians and Serbs are having at it. Quebecers will vote Monday in an election that will turn largely on the sentiment for or against independence.

Leaders of Canada's nine English-speaking provinces have completed a package of constitutional amendments aimed at keeping this country intact, sending what they hoped would be an olive branch to French-speaking Quebec and closing a chapter in an arduous, months-long negotiation that has left most Canadians jaded, cynical and discouraged about their country's future.

Canadians went to the polls Monday and drastically redrew their country's political map, throwing out Prime Minister Kim Campbell and electing a majority Liberal Party government led by Jean Chretien, a 59-year-old French-speaking lawyer from Quebec. Voters delivered an astonishing rebuke to the Progressive Conservative Party, which has governed since 1984, first under Brian Mulroney and for the last five months under Campbell.

The province of Quebec threw down the gauntlet this week: It promised to conduct a referendum on the sovereignty question by October, 1992, and challenged English-speaking Canada to do something to stop it. Baffled, worried and fed-up English-speaking Canadians are now waiting to see what their elected officials will tell Quebec on their behalf. One man who is helping to come up with a response is Keith Spicer, head of the Citizens' Forum on Canada's Future.

Flag-waving Canadians from every province streamed into Montreal on Friday, joining Quebeckers rallying for national unity three days before a referendum that could propel Quebec toward secession. Drawing tens of thousands of people, it was the biggest political rally in Canada this century, historians said.

Defenders of Canadian national unity expressed confidence Tuesday that they can defeat efforts by the newly elected separatist government of Quebec to achieve independence for the mainly French-speaking province. Indeed, Monday's election of the Parti Quebecois here seemed to have a little something for everybody. The separatists--or sovereigntists, as they prefer to be called--won a strong majority of 77 seats in the 125-member provincial Parliament.

Now that Canadian voters have roundly defeated their government's latest set of proposals for unifying the country--voting no in a rare and historic national referendum--important questions remain for America's northern neighbor: Will the French-speaking province of Quebec now move toward independence, making good on a decades-old threat and finally rupturing this often-fractious 125-year-old confederation?